Today we got a tour of Kanda University, the main campus that I will be attending to take courses this semester. The trip wasn't bad and the walk was more or less straight forward. The campus itself is attractive and they have a fair deal of tennis courts, which makes me happy. I get into moods where I want to play tennis and I'd have to say now is such a time.
Another experience I've had today was inside one of the arcades, a Taito [company] one to be exact. The group I was with wanted to go to a Photobooth again so I went with them but decided to walk around the arcade instead. There I found those games where you put coins in and the slide down stuff and push more coins, well, here you get to keep the coins that fall off, so I decided to get some tokens and try it. Little did I know that the smallest amount of Tokens was 1000円 so I put that in and to my surprise I got 200 tokens, haha. I didn't know I was supposed to put a cup under there to catch them so they started going all into the change machine and a Japanese employee came over and gave me a cup. I thought it was funny. Anyway, I played those for a while and got back pretty much all the tokens I had spent on it, haha, so I had about 200 tokens and didn't know what ot do with them when the people I was with came back. What they have there is a "Medal Keep Machine", but you had to have some sort of account there. Luckily, one of my party members had been in Japanese last semester and could help me make one, so I *think* next time I go back there I'll be able to figure out how to use the machine to get my tokens back. Worst case scenerio I lose the $10 and have a story to tell from now on.
Dinners in this dorm are really quite the experience. It's sort of like having a home made dinner but in a mass produced sort of way, as in we see the ladies cooking behind the other room but they make just a bunch of different stuff and we eat it all without really having a choice. The meals range from fish to pork to beef, and all the meals come with rice, water, and soup. I am not a huge fan of most of the soups I've been trying with the exception of a really delicious onion soup, but the rest has been more than edible. I enjoy everything here except this really thin white fish, it's just really chewy and stiff in ways I just don't care for.
Well, it's come to my attention that I haven't showered yet today, so I'm going to go do that real quick before bed. I love the showers here, they're so toasty.
Oh, and my dorm I have taken pictures of, they're at the very end of my Japan : Days 1 - 4 Album.
Alright, shower then bed, then Meikai Tour tommorrow!
Sorry about that, but I've really been busy and things haven't settled down all that much, but here's a few more pictures of today. I went back to Akihabara to see if they had something for a DSi, a new Nintendo handheld system I am considering getting here, along with a Camera battery, and something for a girl I travel with that will hopefully fix her internet. We found tons of wires and cables and cords, but none of any what we were looking for. Also, there is a giant store of books and CDs, and the group I was travelling with wanted to go in there, but once we were in there it was hard to pull aforementioned girl and I out of there as Japanese Pop is something that we both enjoy very much, haha.
I ended up staying in Akihabara alone later that evening, trying to find the previous items, but to my dismay the really sketchy street stores were closed and it's not exactly the kind of item you find in an official store... And what was weird after that was I saw someone from my dorm randomly on the streets so I tagged along with him to go buy some books he wanted. I personally haven't bought anything from Akihabara, although it's rather inexpensive. I have bought a Totoro Keychain, which is 100% too adorable.
After we went to the giant bookstore which I had been to already, the kid insisted on showing me something... interesting. He asked if I had seen a Japanese adult movie store and since I never had before, he took the liberty of more or less making me go into the one that was conveniently located at the bottom floor of the Book Off [that was it's name]. It was ummm... not something I wanted to go to, but that being said and done, I don't regret it. It was very interesting in there, from a cultural aspect it's strange because pornography is a taboo in America, whereas here there are men of all ages, at least 18+, browsing thousands of films as if what they are doing is completely fine. Not being a porn fan myself I can't say I was at home there, but it was an experience that I'm glad he made me do. =P Sorry, but no one back home will be getting a souvenir from there XP
Alrighty, well, here's the updated link to the next few days of pictures, maybe more. Gotta go to bed, early meeting in the morning. Blah.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075646&id=3708410&l=df7dfdec76
So today was a fun day, and I will share using pictures.
Me and a group of 5 other people travelled to Shibuya, the shopping district area of Tokyo, Asakusa, containing one of the oldest shrines in Tokyo, and Akihabara, Electronic capital of Japan. I didn't get any pictures of Akihabara because the one store we went in I don't think allows photographs, but it had about 8 floors of electronics at very reasonable prices. Additionally, it had a golf driving range on the top floor. Crazy desu ne?
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075554&id=3708410&l=04640de3a6
So I'm really tired and it's late so I'm just going to direct you to pictures. Well, really, just click the link a few days down, they are added at the end of that album.
Today's summary : I walked around for a while with a couple people, tried to find an ATM that accepted my card, as Japan has a lot of private banks that only work with certain people. After walking for hours and just looking around we decided to go shopping for slippers and other products needed in dorms, and then we headed back to Baraki Nakayama, my "home station", if you will.
Once back at my dorm, which is a 10 minute walk from that station, I had a meal with a majority of the IES males in my dorm and then I went back to my room. I didn't want to go to the karaoke club or wherever they went, drinking isn't my thing, to this point I've never even tried any alcohol of any kind. I'll probably have some here during a ceremony or celebration or something, but maybe not. Dunno.
Anyway, after that I decided to find out where the showers and bath room was. The showers were really large to my surprise, and the bath was amazing. The thing about the bath room, it's fully nude, which might be a surprise to some people, but the Japanese take baths with eachother completely naked. Mostly gender specific only, but some co-ed exist in the country. Anyway, my experience was a solo one, no one was in there and I think that's probably a good thing for my first time. But my was the water magnificent, it was steaming and clean and really hot but not burning.
And now it's bed time, I'm literally exhausted. Check the pictures of today's photos, which will be at the end of this one. Oh, and if you want to leave comments you can make a facebook account and leave them, if it's worth leaving comments on the picture =P
Bed time! Oyasumi Nasai!
Well,
So tonight is my first night in my dorm and where I'll be living for the next 4 months or so. I have to go to bed soon so it's going to be a quick summary of my day, my apologies.
First thing this morning we had breakfast, comparable to yesterday, then we had to attend another ever so joyful orientation, this time on academic classes. I got into Pop Culture, Marketing Strategies, and the History of Tokyo, all the courses I wanted. Of course Japanese too. They all look fun and most have field study, which will be amazing to travel around. I feel like such a tourist, haha. Oh well.
After that I waited for a couple people to get out of a Field Placement Mandatory Meeting [if you have a field placement that is] and wandered around the gorgeous park that is outside the OVTA building. It was really peaceful and pleasant and made me really happy to stand in. It really feels like a different world, but the culture shock hasn't really affected me as much as people say it does. *shrugs* Anyway, I took pictures of some flowers, birds, and saw a bunch of very small children playing. It was rather cute. I wanted to take more pictures of them but I didn't want to be rude and / or creepy, so I just took one from a distance.
Oh, forgot to mention, I used a toilet that washes your rectum for the first time today. It was quite the experience, it's interesting because the seat is heated as well as the water, and it's just a different experience. It's a strange thing because I never really thought that it was a problem in the States, not having water spray your butt that is, so I'm not sure how I really feel about it, haha. It's definitely unique to say the least.
Now would be a good time to describe some of the friends I've made maybe. Perhaps the people I get along with the best are two girls who were alpabetically around me on the people chart, I was placed in their group during one of the orientiering meetings and it was with them that I ate both lunches with. They live in Baraki Nakayama too, just in the female dorm. This is surprisingly not as close as you'd think, it's a 10 minute walk the other way from the station, that just goes to show you how large even the small divisions of towns are. Anyway, they seem to be fun people to walk around with and I feel pretty comfortable around them. Also to be noted, the group of male Baraki Nakayama students I live with are very nice too, 5 other males of varying Japanese skill, I rank in the middle, 2 of them know nothing, and the other 3 have a good year or two on me. Anyway, they're all fun, and while some / most of them like going to bars they aren't the kind of typical "get drunk and do crazy shit" frat boys. I enjoy the people that want to go to Japan to witness the culture, and all 6 of us share a genuine liking to the culture. Other than the 2 girls and my building-mates, I've met a handful of other people, including a male that speaks fluent English and Romanian, people who haven't studied any Japanese, anime fans, and a slew of other people, all very nice.
Anyway, back to after the park. After the park I went to lunch with the 2 girls and we went to a... I actually don't know what the name or kind of restaurant it was. It was in the same mall food court. I got an egg-noodle-ketchup-mustard-cheese-and a little bit of beef thing, look at the Facebook album. It was really good actually. One of the girls, who is indian, got a vegetarian version of it and had vegetables instead of the noodles, although I honestly liked the noodle portion of it. The other person I was with got takoyaki, and it's so creepy when the fish flakes on top of it "move" because the steam is moving them, but you can't see the steam in the least. It looks alive and is honestly rather unnerving. The actual meat inside of the dumpling thing is octopus by the way. But they are delicious hot.
After that we hiked around with EPALs, volunteerish type people, around the city and went to the IES building and got a tour. Well, it's really just one building, the IES portion is on the 3rd floor. That was neat and I'm still going to get lost going there. I haven't been to my actual campus yet.
After that we split up into our groups of location where we live and group train-ed to the closest station to our dorm. That was a fun experience, and getting a Suica [train pass], is really neat. You pay a discounted price and get unlimited trips to and from [and anywhere in between] the stations of your choice. For 3 months the cost of traveling 40 minutes, half by walk, half by train, was about $250. Tickets would have costed $600+. Anyway, walking to the station for the first time was pretty intense, it's a rather long walk, but it was fun. We had all our carry on luggage though, which was okay for me, but other people were struggling with their pull along bags and whatnot. I had a backpack and a small shoulder carry on.
When we arrived at the final station, Baraki Nakayama, we split into our gender groups and it was at that point where I got to know the people I am living with. As I described above, they are nice people. One of them goes to my school at Rochester, I didn't know him up to this point though. We got a tour of the place by the manager, which speaks pretty much no English, but we had the IES Program Director to translate, although most of the stuff was self explanatory. It was funny, he stressed a lot not to burn yourself on the soup cooker, haha. We get a dinner cooked for us every day except Sundays, and the same for Breakfast. It's nice because it's free and also is a homecooked meal. Well, at least not prepared like a restaurant. There are about 85 students in the whole dorm place, I think maybe the 6 of us and 1 Brazilian kid lives there. And the rules are quite strict for the most part, as is everything over here more or less, and I don't know how extreme this seems to you, but they take visitors and outsiders very seriously. You can't have any member of the opposite gender in the building at all, and guests are not allowed to stay. Not that either of these are an issue with me, but it just goes to show some cultural differences.
Annnyyyway, after we got settled in we had a delicious meal of some spicy tofu with rice, spring roll type things, fruit, soup, and salad. It was really good and I can't complain with food like this being prepared for us. There is a sign up sheet for meals, you just specify whether you want the American or Japanese Breakfast, and then if you don't plan on being there, etc.
After that we went shopping for some things like toothpaste, shampoo, detergent, etc. I tried using my Visa but it didn't work, most likely because it's a Debit / Special Checking card, so I have to get money at the ATM, and not the one that only accepts Japanese cards like the one by me, haha. They have them though in main cities. Anywho, I went with my building and we all just went to the Y's Mart [kinda like a TOPS], the 100 Yen Store, and the 99 Yen Store. It was actually really fun.
So to wrap things up, I really enjoy it here. Like, a lot. I don't think I could handle living here for a couple reasons, first and foremost my girlfriend is worth more than anything to me in the entire world, and making her move to Japan isn't something I could do. Second, it really is pretty crazy here, and I'm not all that good at Japanese to figure out some of the craziness, and I'm not the best at learning. There are plenty of absolutely great things here though, including but not limited to: the air smells so fresh and nice in this part of the country, people are very very polite, you can leave your coat / purse on a table at a mall food court and no one with take it even if you leave it unattended, similarly when people lose their wallet on the street it almost always comes back to a police station, it's super colorful here, everything here is incredibly cute such as the children and all the advertisting, and lastly I just feel a deep connection and appreciation of the country.
There really aren't words for how great this experience is so far, it's only been 3 days and it's by far the most unique experience I've ever had.
Ja Mata!
PS, remember to check the last link in a few post ago to see the updated Photos. I'm constantly updating them.
So now I've spent my first whole day here, and I still agree with yesterday's post; everything here has been so surreal and amazing. Everything about today was great, except for perhaps the 6 hour orientation meetings, but I guess those cannot be helped. It wasn't all day as lunch was fun as we went to a nearby foodcourt in a mall and ate there. 天ぷらを食べた, meaning I ate Tempura. For those who aren't familiar, here is a picture I took, I actually had already eaten some of the things, sorry. It is more or less seafood and vegetables in a light fried batter with rice. It was really good. I also had some Hi-Chu candy, they are like Starburst candy but in my opinion better tasting.
For breakfast, while I'm on the line of food, I had a traditional American breakfast, sort of. I had little sausage links, an egg, and some french fry things. Along with this I had some what I believe to be Miso soup and a drinkable yogurt. The yogurt was most interesting, it was a blueberry yogurt that was more liquidy than regular yogurt but at the same time delicious. And was drank through a straw.
For dinner we took, meaning myself along with a small group and an IES Staff member, a train from Kaihin Makuhari to a 牛丼, 『Gyuudon, Beef Bowl』 place and were taught how to order something simple. The most common thing there was the gyuudon, which is super thin slices of beef on top of rice, the slices are delicious and papery almost. Look here, I didn't take this, but it looked more or less like what I had. It was rather quite delicious.
All in all it was a great day. The walk to and from the station[s] seeing the streets of Japan really shows you that there is a life totally outside of what we're accostomed to in the States. There really isn't an easy way to explain what's different other than everything. The only thing that is similar is that it's a culture with people, and that's really pulling at it. I love all that I've seen so far though. Here are a couple of the things I'd like to share:
- Vending Machines. They're everywhere. And have everything. Not just soft drinks and juice like the states, they have hot drinks, teas, alcoholic beverages, and a very wide variety of fruit drinks. Also, there are Hot Meal ones, prepaid cards, cigarettes, and umbrellas, just to name a few and what I saw. I looked and someone else has taken pictures, see them here.
- Scented Toilet Paper. Next time you need to use the bathroom and go to wipe and want your outcome to be delicious grape, go for it. I personally didn't see this but 2 people I met here have vouched to see it, and the idea is ridiculous to me. Apparently the range of the smell is a good 20 feet as well.
- The Food. There are so many different kinds of food places, and even the places that sell the same kind look completely different. I know the same goes for America, but the different kinds of noodles, meat, and bowls are really fascinating here.
- The City[s]. Now, I've been to Rochester and vaguely remember when I was in NYC, but even the city that I'm in [the non-busybusy part of Tokyo] has buildings that are dozens of floors high, corners that are lit up with neon lights, then on the same street have a little building with classic architecture with a park around the corner. The variety and sheer uniqueness at every turn is astounding.
Alrighty, well, ja mata!
Hey everyone! It's my first night in Japan, and I have to say, it's pretty amazing. The plane coming in was early so I got to everywhere I needed to be on time, despite there being a Detour because of a volcano eruption. 13 hours is a long time for a flight, but honestly the time seemed to go by enough. Maybe I slept, I feel I didn't that much, hence the ridiculous tiredness now, which will be satiated by bed shortly, fear not. OH, before I forget, advertisement, you should watch The Secret Life of Bees, it's really good.
Anyway, at Narita I got my luggage with little trouble, stumbled through the Japanese points with English, filled out my Customs forms, and then made it to the actual lobby. The IES people were still waiting for more people, so that was great, and I exchanged money and sent my luggage to my dorm via Luggage Taxi service things. I actually have no idea how the heck these things work, but hopefully they do and I see my luggage again...
Then I went with a few other people and purchased bus tickets, which was confusing because we didn't know where we were going, but this one girl had purchased one before so we told the lady at the desk we wanted one like hers. Kinda reminded me of the Amazing Race really. And Yen is really cool. You should read about it. I have most of them but the 50 Yen coin.
The city is quite amazing, at least from the trip to the OVTA from the Airport. There is actually quite a bit of English on billboards and whatnot. Not so much in actual rooms like the one I'm in now, but it's awesome nonetheless. I'm in the Overseas Vocational Training Association now, it's like a hotel but not quite. The lights are crazy, to turn them on you have to put this popsicle stick thing attached to your keys into a little switch, probably to save electricity because you can't leave the lights on without your keys. There is also a 3 foot deep or so bath, which I am going to utilize shortly, haha.
I tried putting pictures on Flickr and Photobucket, perhaps it's my internet, but the uploading failed. I did manage to get them on Facebook, so here are links to the Detroit pictures and to the Japan Pictures.
Alright, well tomorrow is a busy day, and I'm going to go take a bath then go to bed. Jet lag doesn't seem to be effecting me at all? I don't know, perhaps it's my completely random sleep schedule. Or maybe I'll feel it later, haha. Either way, be back to report more later!
お休みなさい!
Alrighty, so I got into Detroit, Michigan on time. I do have to say that I think that landing is by far the scariest thing about flying. Not being able to see the runway, or if there is even a runway in front of you, is rather terrifying. All in all, it was fun though. I wish they didn't confiscate my White Nectar and Pink Coral Flower Shampoo though =P Silly "Liquid Rules"
Next step of the way is to Japan, yay for 14 hour flights!
Oh, and you should Google / Youtube "Detroit Airport Water Fountain". The thing is so awesome, it's the coolest part of the airport [which all in all is pretty sweet]. And the color tunnel is pretty awesome too.
Well, time to head out! My hour of internet is almost up!
~ Damian
So after trying to fiddle (and eventually giving up) with the Blogspot "Gadget" applications, my grandfather found one that uses a simple HTML code, fixing the problem with the one that reset itself when the visitor left the page.
So I'm sure you noticed when you first visited this page that the top now has a clock. This clock displays the current time in Japan, at least the zone that I'll be in. This seems to be the easiest way, as opposed to putting it in an entry and having you find that post every time. Next time you want to know what time it is in Japan, worry no more and check the top of this page!
Another thing I wanted to try, at least notify you of, is the Subscribe feature of Blogspot / Live Updates. Now, I'm not entirely sure on how they work, but to the best of my knowledge, a "feed" category will be created and notify you when I update the Blog. There are a few ways to subscribe to this.
1) Click the yellow-ish icon that is in the upper left hand corner of this page. It looks like 
.
2) Click the icon above in Step 1.
3) Click HERE.
I'm really not too sure on what happens from there, but Google made the function so people use it, so there surely is a use for it. I would recommend trying it and seeing what happens. Also note that it is my understanding that the feature works differently on different browsers, so Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera will all handle this feed update differently.
One last thing for this blog post. It has come to my attention that a few of my viewers are having a tricky time leaving comments. I believe that the main reason is that people are not checking the "Name / URL" option and leaving the default "Google/Blogger" option. Unless you have a Google account, then you'll be presented with some "login necessary" or "credentials" error. The easiest way to get around is is as stated previously, that is, check the "Name / URL". Consult the following diagram for more help:
After clicking "Name/URL" and typing your comment in the comment box, "Publish your comment" will now work without any problems!
Alrighty, that's about it for this update. Really just a matter of housekeeping that is blog related, so I'm sorry about those of you who found this and was looking for actual content. Actual content should come real soon as I'm leaving in about 50 hours for Japan! I'm excited to say the least, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified as well. It's going to be a brand new world over there, with new things to see and experience, and a language barrier, just to name a few. Despite all the potentially problematic things, I really am incredibly excited.
じゃまた!
Alrighty, let's see. I know it's been pretty much forever since this blog has received any update at all, so let's give it a go now. I have a couple hours before work this time, which coincidentally is my last night before I return in July, so this one has the potential to be a monster of an update. Basically I think I'm just going to ramble on about how things are going and some Japan updates, including where I'll be residing, class schedule, etc. If all goes well there will be pictures of the building I am staying in, but we'll see!
First of all, I can't seem to make the "World Clock" gadget work on my blog, so I took that off, so you're just going to have to go to a site to display it. Being the kind person that I am I have taken the liberty of finding a site to display everything you'd probably want to know about where I am. So, click THIS LINK to find some info such as the time, weather, and moon conditions of more-or-less where I'll be the next 4 months.
Alright, so what have I been up to you ask? Or even if you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you! I have continued working 4 - 5 nights a week at a local McDonald's, which, judge as you will, is not all that bad of a job. Surely not something I'd want to make a life career out of, but it's fun enough to do for breaks and summers. A lot of the people there are real nice to work with, and being friends with the managers is always a good thing as well. I work shifts like 7:00 PM to Closing, which gets out anywhere from 12:30 AM to 2:00 AM. Not like I go to bed before 4:30 AM anyway. Which, I might want to stop, haha. But yeah, I work here most nights.
On days I don't work I visit my girlfriend or do random things such as read, play videogames, watch anime, or as of late, study Japanese. My favorite thing out of all these is of course visit Marissa, it's been so nice not going to University of Rochester this semester and being able to visit her more often. It's going to be hard being apart from her for so long, but we're not going to let it separate us. We've been together for nearly 3 years and we are very dedicated to eachother, so this won't split us. I love her to death and more than anything in the entire world.
Yesterday concluded, for the most part, my shopping for necessities for Japan. I ordered luggage from Cabela's and that came and is real nice. I also ordered a pocket electronic English <--> Japanese dictionary, which is real nice. It was a bit pricy, but I think the use of it will pay off for it. And also, I'm a gadget nut, so I don't regret spending a few hundred on something that I think is neat and practical.
So let's see. May as well go into where I'll be staying as this is breaking news even for me. I'm going to take a stab at explaining this the easiest way possible, as I'm sure that most of you are not familiar with the formalities of Japanese addresses. I'm not going to list the building in this blog because I don't know if it's a good idea to or not to be honest, haha, but the city and prefecture and whatnot are surely fine. First of all, my address to the common American would be this: Baraki, Ichikawa-shi, Chiba. If you want to know the Postal Code and the building number you're going to have to email me, because I think that web-crawlers or bots that scan and send junk mail may target things that have numbers, and well, I don't need that happening. But for those of you who are interested, my Japanese location is: 千葉県市川市原木.
To break it down, if anyone is interested, is as follows. The prefecture is Chiba, which is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. If you're not familiar with what a prefecture is, think of it as a boundary, almost like a State in the USA, but not quite. Anyway, here's a map of all of them :
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As you can see, I live right next to Tokyo, and to be honest, a lot of the stuff is actually in Chiba and not Tokyo. The program name is IES Tokyo but I imagine it's like that because more people would be attracted to how close it is to Tokyo than Chiba because clearly more people have heard of Tokyo before. Anyway, there you have it.
Ah yes, continuing breaking it down. Ichikawa-shi means Ichikawa City, as "shi" means city. Ichikawa literally breaks down to mean "One River", although it is my understanding that there isn't a significant river that it gets it's name from. If you want to learn more about the city, info can be found at the City of Ichikawa website, feel free to read up on it. It looks like a very nice city with some Shrines and other various things to see. I'm excited at least! The last part, Baraki, is the most specific location, like a "ward" of sorts.
Alrighty, what else can I get in. Oh yeah, the place I'm living is a men's dormitory. At this point I was given only the address, so I don't know what kind of room I'll be staying in, whether it's a single or a double or something like that. I would also imagine that it will be full of people of all races as the building is absolutely huge. I found it on Google Maps - Street View, I'll post a picture of it below. Courtesy of Google Maps.
You can walk around Google Maps by clicking street view with the info I've told you, and you can use the info in the email I will send to you to find this exact building and walk around it and stuff. Technology is pretty neat these days with things like that.
Well, once again I seem to have found myself out of time, although admittedly an good h our of the time I thought I'd have to write this was used talking to a friend in Rochester who is also going to Japan in a month or so, and also to my girlfriend. There were a couple other things that I was going to look up, like Beaches and attractions that will be near me, but due to lack of time at this moment I may have to put it off. I'm going to be kinda busy packing and whatnot the next few days, but I'll try to look into it.
And like I said before, should you be interested, email me at damian.larue@rochester.edu and I'll send you more info on where I am and a phone number, although I don't think it's to my room, just the building. I'm going to be using Skype for talking to people in the USA, so if you make a Skype account I can keep in contact, either video calls, voice calls, or instant messaging.
Anyway, thanks for reading!
~ Damian ~